


waffles and war

by ohlookatthestars (KanbaraAkhito)



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, T for wound mentions be safe!!, all of the batfam make appearances so i just tag the ones that say things, they meet again? i dunno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 15:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11466723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KanbaraAkhito/pseuds/ohlookatthestars
Summary: Kyle is already prepared to give whoever had interrupted his week off from intergalactic crises a beatdown, so he is rather disappointed when he finds himself in a sea of knocked out goons and subpar weaponry. Whatissurprising, is that Donna is not alone. It takes a moment for Kyle to recognize who she’s standing with, but when he does he can’t help but stare.Jason Todd.





	waffles and war

They’re buying crepes when the shooting starts.

Kyle, unperturbed, chews happily at his crepe, reveling in the taste of cheap New York street food. Feeling a weighty presence on his left, Kyle turns to meet Donna’s gaze, mouth still full. She looks pleadingly back up at him.

“No.”

“Please, Kyle.” Her hands are squeezing her crepe dangerously. 

“I’m on _vacation_ , Donna,” he whines.

“I know,” she replies, “I’m sorry. Just let me go check it out? I’ll be quick about it, I swear.”

He stares. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

“Thanks, Kyle. You’re the best.” She kisses his cheek then casts a quick glance around for any stragglers. Everyone had successfully run screaming into a safer area. Kyle wonders where the crepe vendor went. Donna heads towards the chaos and proceeds to shuck her sweater off, revealing her suit, patterned like the night sky. 

“Who are you, Superman?” Kyle mutters, sliding down against a wall. He finishes his crepe and looks down at Donna’s, sighing. 

There’s a loud crash in the alley two streets over where the fighting is taking place, and Kyle hears Donna yell out. He’s on his feet instantly, cursing himself and his friends and Ganthet, for giving him this stupid ring and getting him involved with a bunch of stupid superheroes. He runs towards the alley, lifting off the ground easily as his suit slides into place over his skin. Kyle is already prepared to give whoever had interrupted his week off from intergalactic crises a beatdown, so he is rather disappointed when he finds himself in a sea of knocked out goons and subpar weaponry. What _is_ surprising, is that Donna is not alone. It takes a moment for Kyle to recognize who she’s standing with, but when he does he can’t help but stare.

Jason Todd. 

Jason pops the helmet off his head, peeling the domino off with a wince. Donna reaches up to hug him, then sucker punches him in the arm. Kyle chooses that exact moment to burst into laughter. The two of them look over at him and Donna grins. Jason, rubbing his arm(which had to hurt a damn lot after getting clocked by an Amazon) gives Kyle a measured look of disdain. Kyle only laughs harder, taking it as a win when Jason’s lips twitch at the corners.

“Missed you too, Rayner,” he says. “Nice suit, by the way.”

Kyle looks down at his White Lantern suit and lets the construct of his mask fade so he can give Jason an exaggerated wink. “Like what you see, gorgeous?”

Jason coughs, flushing, and it’s Donna’s turn to laugh. 

\----

They end up in Radu’s after Kyle gets Jason a change of clothes. He’s been crashing in his old New York city apartment, and flying certainly had its perks. Jason is taller than him, but not by much, so he fits into them without much trouble. Still, there’s something novel about seeing the Red Hood, terror of Gotham’s underworld, in a 90’s band tee. 

They exchange casual information about the goings-on in their lives, and Kyle and Donna are both surprised to hear who Jason has been working with recently.

“Roy?” Kyle asks, “Man, I haven’t seen Roy in ages. How is he?”

“He’s fine. He and Kori are—um.”

Donna laughs aloud as Kyle gapes. 

“Roy and Starfire?” Kyle asks, astounded. 

“Sounds like Kori,” Donna says, smiling.

Jason nods, “They’re good for each other.”

“They’re freaking _beautiful_ , Jason.” 

It’s Jason’s turn to stare, bewildered, and the thought that Jason is as beautiful as they are, more so even, crosses Kyle’s mind. He pushes it away. “Oh. Well—well, yeah. They are. I guess. Got a crush, Rayner?” 

Kyle drops his head into his arms dramatically, “If all the pretty people keep pairing off, what hope do the rest of us have?”

Jason snorts, “Like you’re going to have that problem.”

He and Donna fall into comfortable conversation as Kyle turns Jason’s words over and over in his head.

Huh.

He was fairly sure he’d just been called pretty.

\----

The next time Kyle sees Jason, there’s a bullet in his shoulder.

Jason blinks. “Ow.”

Koriand’r floats down, worry pinching her expression, Roy not far behind.

“Jason,” she says, kneeling and reaching for him, “We are going to help you, and get that out of your shoulder, okay? How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” Jason replies, but he’s sweating and his body is wound tight. 

“That’s Jason for—Well for everything, actually.”

Jason glares up at Roy, but the archer is already behind him, tugging off his jacket with gentle movements, gentler than those of the Roy Kyle had known long ago. 

“Hey,” Kyle says, feeling a bit like an outsider and guilty for interrupting their moment. “Let me.”

Roy looks surprised and Jason turns a confused gaze on him. For some reason, it’s Koriand’r who understands. Kyle’s never even really met her before. 

“Let him,” she nods. She exchanges some kind of silent look with Roy and he moves back. 

Kyle crouches next to Jason and observes the wound, trying not to get distracted by the way Jason’s pale eyes stare at him with unabashed curiosity. 

“This is going to hurt a bit. It’ll also probably feel pretty weird.”

Jason nods, still not looking away.

Breathing out slowly, Kyle closes his eyes and focuses on the piece of metal cutting into Jason’s shoulder. Jason tenses, gritting his teeth, as Kyle extracts the bullet and immediately lays a hand over the puncture, knitting the skin together.

A moment later, there’s no trace of the wound, just drying blood surrounding the area where it had been. 

Jason looks up at him in wonder and Kyle finds himself memorizing the planes of his face. “How did you do that?”

It takes a moment for Kyle to realize the question is directed at him. Roy and Koriand’r wear identical awed expressions.

“New powers,” Kyle says, indicating the white ring and coughing a bit as they all stare at it, unsure what to do with the attention.

Roy whistles and Kori just smiles, something knowing in her expression that Kyle doesn’t want to read into.

“Thank you,” Jason says, and his voice is softer than Kyle’s ever heard it.

Kyle draws his hand away gently, desperate to disperse the tension before he says something stupid.

“Anytime, gorgeous.” Kyle was going to ask Donna to personally come over and kick his ass.

But then Jason _laughs_ and now it’s Kyle who can’t stop staring.

\----

“Donna, I have a problem.”

“Ice cream?”

“Yes, please.”

\----

“I don’t get it,” Kyle says fifteen minutes later, mouth full of rocky road.

Donna pats his arm in what he assumes is a placating gesture, but her amusement betrays her as she licks her spoon clean.

“He’s crazy.”

She considers this, frowning at Kyle as he hugs the ice cream carton to his chest, unwilling to share. In his defense, he was having a crisis. Of the non-galactic variety.

“A bit,” she concedes after a moment, giving up on stealing Kyle’s carton and walking to his fridge where she’d stowed the rest.

Kyle groans, a brain freeze in progress, and drops his spoon for the moment. 

“Then why does it feel like the Amazons as a collective race are punching the insides of my stomach every time I see him lately?”

Donna laughs and Kyle is not so egotistical that he will deny that he pouts in response. Every good person was entitled to their pouts. 

“What do I do?” he moans, and Donna winks at him.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “I’ve called for backup.”

Kyle has a few seconds to ponder what this means before a Tameranean woman flies through his window and lands lightly on his coffee table. He stares up at one of the most ethereal beings in the multiverse with ice cream dripping onto his shirt. Kyle decides he hates Donna. 

\----

“He thinks very highly of you, you know.”

Kyle, still a little bit in shock, startles at Kori’s comment.

“He said that?”

She shakes her head. “He does not have to.”

Donna punches his arm happily, without much force considering her strength, and Kyle suddenly feels vicious remorse for laughing at Jason the other day. Because what the fuck. Ow.

He frowns, realizing with painful clarity all of a sudden that he has no real idea what he’s doing. Kyle has been in his fair share of relationships, but he isn’t really relying on his track record.

“You don’t need to rush into anything, you know,” Donna says, sensing his plight, “Just take it as it comes.”

Kyle relaxes a bit and nods, resolving to do exactly that. Accepting that his mind is continually going to float to those handful of memories he has of Jason’s smiles, Kyle sighs, though not unhappily. 

“Hey,” he asks, turning to Kori, and because he has no dignity left to lose, continues, “Do you like rocky road?”

She grins, pleased, and the three of them proceed to eat through sixteen cartons as they marathon old, cheesy films that Kori had once thought were the epitome of Earth romance. 

\----

“Kyle?” Jason’s voice is grainy over the phone, but Kyle can hear the worry in it.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, and his throat feels like sandpaper. He has a vague memory of being thrown repeatedly into a titanium wall. “Yeah, it’s me. Jason? Is something wrong?”

“I—“Jason starts, then seems to cut himself off. Kyle rubs at his eyes, wondering why he can’t remember ever reaching his apartment last night. “The fight, last night,” Jason begins again, his voice thin with concern, and Kyle realizes something really must have gone wrong. “I saw you fall from the sky, Kyle, and you hit the ground somewhere near the old tower and I—I couldn’t find you. No one could. Hal eventually figured out Carol had taken you home and used her cellular regeneration to fix you up a bit, but not totally, and I just—Are you okay?”

The memories come back in bits and pieces. Kyle remembers Oracle’s distress call about a prison break at Arkham. He’d been in town, hanging out with Jason, actually, and they’d both run to lend a hand. Sometime during the fight he’d lost sight of the Red Hood, but had continued fighting, hoping he was safe. Kyle had been tangling with the infamous Harley Quinn, and flown up to get an advantage, only to be sidetracked by a giant waving plant-tentacle-thing. This is where everything went choppy. He remembers, as Jason said, being knocked out of the sky, and hears flashes of Carol’s voice, telling him it was going to be okay. 

“Kyle?”

“Oh,” Kyle snaps back to the present, “Yeah, Jason, I’m fine. Just sore, I think.”

A flash of yellow catches his eye and he rolls over, reading through a note from Carol telling him he was stable and that she’d had to run out to deal with some space thing(Kyle knew the feeling), but that he should get some rest and Hal would be over to check on him sometime at night. 

He drops the note, falling onto his back and returning his attention to Jason. He likes Jason, his mind provides. He likes him a lot. Huh. Maybe he was concussed. 

“What number is this?” Kyle asks instead of pondering his possible concussion.

“New one,” Jason replies, still sounding a bit strung.

“And you remembered my number? I’m blushing, Hood.”

“Uh huh,” Jason says, and Kyle lets out a fond breath.

“I really am okay, Jason. Promise.”

He can almost feel Jason relaxing. “Okay,” he says, and Kyle is actually really sure he’s concussed now, because there is no way sane Kyle would have said what he says next.

“Tell me about your day.”

“What?” Jason asks, sounding as surprised as Kyle feels. 

“I don’t know,” Kyle defends, suddenly awake, “I just. Like listening to you talk.” Yeah, keep digging, Rayner, you’ll reach rock bottom soon enough.

Kyle expects teasing, but all Jason does is say, “Okay,” again, then continues, “Tim poured orange juice into his cereal today morning, because sleep is a foreign concept to him and he wouldn’t be alive if Alfred wasn’t around, and Damian, that demon…”

Jason talks and Kyle listens, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, and giggling at Jason’s indignant exclamations at the sheer lunacy of his family. 

\----

An hour or so later, Kyle’s stomach starts to growl. He’s still on the phone with Jason, but decidedly more participant now that his hunger has woken him more permanently. 

“Hey, Jason?” he asks, at an interlude in their conversation.

“Yeah?”

“I’m hungry,” Kyle says, staring at the ceiling like it will answer all his questions or maybe, preferably, rain sausages.

Jason hums on the other end of the line, contemplating, and Kyle can imagine the scrunched Thinking Face he has on. He silently thanks the universe for outdoing herself with Jason Todd. 

“Do you like waffles?” Jason asks.

“I would give my life for them,” Kyle replies without hesitation, and Jason laughs. Kyle feels a victorious twinge in his chest at being the one responsible for it. 

“Give me forty-five minutes. There’s this breakfast place Steph loves that actually makes waffles descended from the heavens. What do you like on yours?”

“Strawberries and whipped cream,” Kyle says into the phone, suddenly excited.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Jason says back, a grin in his voice that makes Kyle’s heart skip a beat. He hangs up and Kyle spends the next forty-five minutes trying to convince himself out of bed. So much for willpower.

\----

A loud knock resounds through the apartment, and Kyle finally flops off his bed to answer the door.

“Honey, I’m home,” Jason says when the door swings open, holding up a bag of sinfully delicious smelling waffles.

Kyle looks straight at the bag when he says, “Welcome back, sweetie.”

Jason puts a hand over his heart. “You only love me for my waffles.”

“You caught me,” Kyle replies, straight-faced, and Jason sticks his tongue out at him, coming in nonetheless.

They sit at Kyle’s small island, munching on unhealthily syrupy waffles at 6 P.M. on a Saturday in comfortable silence.

“You were right,” Kyle moans, “These are _literally_ to die for.”

Jason nods through a mouthful, swallowing before replying, “I told you so. Stephanie Brown is a strange girl, but her taste in waffles is both obsessive and exceptional.”

Kyle thinks on that for a moment. “I can’t believe Batgirl has an occultist obsession with waffles.”

“Yeah?” Jason asks, wiggling his eyebrows in a way that makes Kyle jealous, “Then you won’t trust me when I tell you Batman does her makeup.”

Kyle’s mouth drops open and he stares at Jason in mute astonishment.

“ _No way._ ”

“Yep,” Jason says, taking pleasure in Kyle’s open-mouthed expression. “He helps Cass and I with eyeliner when Steph drags us to her college parties too.”

“But he’s Batman,” Kyle replies dumbly.

“What,” Jason challenges, “Rich vigilante father’s can’t wear makeup?”

Kyle shakes his head, “I just always thought he spent his time hiding in caves, or something. He’s just so—Batman. Material possessions just seem, beneath him.”

Jason laughs, finishing his waffle. “I’m kidding, Kyle. And you’re not totally wrong. We do call our hideout ‘the Cave.’”

“I don’t think I can handle this much classified bat information in one day,” Kyle says, shaking his head again—though this time it’s more for dramatic effect.

Jason arcs a single elegant eyebrow as he joins him at the sink and Kyle scowls.

“We get it, nerd. You’re eyebrows are more acrobatic than your older brother.”

A grin splits Jason’s features and Kyle is struck by how beautiful the man standing in the fading light of his tiny kitchen window is. “Jealousy isn’t your color, Rayner.”

“Uh,” Kyle says, pointing to his ring, “Every color is my color, actually.”

For the third time that day(Yes, Kyle is counting, leave him alone, pining is difficult) Jason laughs aloud and a thought strikes Kyle with winding force. 

_’Oh shit.’_ he thinks, _'I might be in love with him.'_

\----

Kyle feels his heart stop as the dagger slices through Jason’s armor. He hears Dick scream in the distance, but it’s muted, as though Kyle is underwater. Lark, who the knife was meant for, catches Jason, setting him on the ground gently and pausing, hand on the side of his golden helmet. Kyle detachedly wonders if he’s calling for help on his comm. 

Then he’s running, or flying, he doesn’t really know, and is at Jason’s side in an instant. The hood is popped off and Jason’s chest moves unevenly. Kyle reaches an arm out, fighting his exhaustion and his own injuries to try and heal Jason. A hand clamps around his wrist and the man shakes his head.

“Don’t, Kyle. You’ll knock yourself out.”

Nightwing had arrived at some point, blood running from his forehead, rapidly engaging with Lark about getting Jason back to the Cave.

“Jason,” Kyle breathes out, “Jason, I don’t care. I don’t care if it knocks me out, I don’t care if it kills me. Let me heal you.”

Jason frowns up at him through the pain, shaking his head again. Kyle wants to cry. He thinks he already might be. “Let me heal you,” he whispers again, pleading.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” Jason says, his voice soft, his eyes closing. “I’ll be okay, I promise. I’ve had worse.”

Kyle doesn’t want to think about _that_.

There’s a pressure on his shoulder, and Kyle looks up into the masked face of Red Robin. Tim’s face is worried, but not damning, and Kyle feels a bit of hope flicker in his chest.

“We’ll get him to the manor. He’ll be okay.”

Kyle looks back at Jason’s prone form, panic almost choking the words from his throat. “Fine. But I’m going with you. If he gets worse, I’m gonna heal him.”

He catches Dick’s gaze as he says this, and the first Robin nods resolutely.

\----

They do end up making it to the Cave with Jason in one piece, and Batman doesn’t even question Kyle’s presence as he descends on his son. Alfred, the butler of legend, has already prepared a cot with an IV drip, an oxygen mask in hand. He and Bruce set to work, the latter’s mouth set in a grim line. Dick lends a hand when needed, his domino off to reveal worried blue eyes. Mostly he flutters around the Cave, unable to stand still as his brother’s life hangs in the balance. Kyle alternates between watching, and feeling too sick to. Black Bat stands beside him, silent, but Kyle can’t help but feel reassured when she takes his hand and squeezes. 

He leaves after Jason stabilizes, called to Guardian headquarters on Oa for a special mission. Tim promises to text when he wakes up, but Jason doesn’t leave Kyle’s thoughts for the entirety of the trip, and phones don’t really work in space.

\----

Kyle returns to Earth after a week, exhausted and craving the comfort of his bed. He has a matter to attend to before that, however.

Flying down to the balcony of Jason’s favored safehouse, Kyle smiles when he sees Damian and Stephanie arguing in the kitchen over a dish of what looks like lasagna. He slides through the partially open glass doors and waves hello, ignoring their surprised expressions in favor of perching on the coffee table by the couch, watching over its occupant. He would have gone to the manor, but he remembers Tim mentioning once that Jason didn’t like staying there when he was injured. He assumed Robin and Batgirl’s presence meant the family was coming to take care of him in turns, so as not to overwhelm him.

“Are they arguing about lasagna again?” Jason asks, arm thrown over his eyes.

Kyle laughs, quiet, and nods, before realizing that Jason can’t see him.

“Yes,” he says. “I think Damian is winning.”

“Really?” Jason moves his arm to meet Kyle’s gaze. “That would be a first.”

“I heard that, Todd!”

“Love you too, baby brat!”

“Doing okay?” Kyle asks, letting his concern show in the soft light of Jason’s living room. 

“Yeah,” Jason says, smiling up at him in a way that makes Kyle’s heart do tricks he wasn’t aware it was capable of. The smile fades as Jason’s eyes flick over his face and he frowns. “You look like you got your ass handed to you. Repeatedly.”

A fair assumption. Kyle makes a vague gesture and says, “Space.”

A crash resounds from the kitchen and Jason pushes himself up to go investigate. Kyle is about to protest, but is beaten to it by Damian, who saw Jason move from his perch on the island. 

“Do not get up, Todd. Everything is fine.”

“You said that when Tim’s closet was on fire too, so forgive me if I don’t completely believe you. Tell me what broke.”

Damian, instead, gets off the counter, balancing four plates of lasagna with ease.

“Brown will take care of the mess.” He smirks, “She lost a game of that foolish rock-scissor game to me.”

Stephanie’s voice floats in from the kitchen. “I am _not_ having a good day!”

Jason rolls his eyes, an affectionate smile crossing his face.  
“I’ll take care of it, Steph. Come have Alfred’s lasagna.”

Stephanie pokes her head into the room to glare. “If you so much as take a step from that couch, I _will_ tell Alfred, and we’ll see if his lasagna saves you then.”

Kyle watches the exchange amusedly as Jason retorts and they continue firing insults at one another. He feels someone sit next to him and turns to look into the unwavering eyes of Damian Wayne. 

“He trusts you,” Damian says quietly, and he does not have to specify who.

“I trust him too,” Kyle replies, and Damian takes this with a nod.

“Then I will trust you to look after him at times when we cannot.”

Kyle smiles, feeling somewhat proud of himself for whatever reason as Stephanie joins Jason on the couch. The four of them sit together and eat the best lasagna Kyle has ever had, and it occurs to him that he doesn't feel like an outsider at all.

\----

When they’ve finished, Jason fights them all into letting him walk to the sink, grumbling about not being fragile. Kyle joins him as Damian and Steph flip through channels on the TV, leaning against each other contentedly as though they hadn’t been fencing with butter knives fifteen minutes earlier. 

Jason sets the dishes in the sink and turns on the water, rinsing them down and starting to clean them. It wasn’t part of the deal, but he looks okay and Kyle knows the frustration of being babied when he really was feeling better. He wordlessly stands beside him, toweling the dishes dry and setting them in a rack. He yawns as he sets a cup down, the week’s events catching up to him.

Jason frowns over at him. “You can stay the night.”

“I don’t want to intrude.” Kyle waves him off.

Jason tilts his head a to the left a little and Kyle genuinely wonders if this boy was created for the sole purpose of sending him into cardiac arrest. 

“It’s fine, Kyle. Stay.” There’s something different in his tone and Kyle looks at him, distantly aware that the sink is empty. 

Instead of replying, he says, “You really had me worried, you know.”

Jason looks at him, silent for a few moments before turning to sink. “I know. Thank you. For offering to save my life. I never would have let you, though. Not when you looked like you’d been beaten six ways to Sunday.”

“Oh my God,” Kyle whispers.

“What?” Jason asks, alert all of a sudden, “What’s wrong?”

“You are so fucking gorgeous.” 

Jason blinks, staring at him the same way he had the first time he’d drank Kyle’s paint water. Then he bites his lip, leaning forward uncertainly and Kyle stops to wonder for a moment at how adorable he is, even now. Then he’s surging forward, pressing their lips together with bruising force. Jason freezes for a moment, before going boneless against him, making a soft noise that did all sorts of things to Kyle. He pulls Jason against him, hands tracing gently over his hips as the other boy’s fingers come to rest lightly on his face. 

There’s a rustling sound from the couch, then Stephanie yells, “Get some, Jayjay!”

They break apart to look over at her. Damian is sprawled across her stomach, a hand pressed futilely against her mouth. “I tried to stop her,” he says, giving Steph a disdainful look. Then Kyle starts to laugh, just like that day in the alley, but this time Jason’s shoulders quake as he joins him. There’s a flush across his cheeks and Kyle really, really wants to kiss him again. So he does.

\----

They crawl into bed together much later than they probably should have. Stephanie and Damian had left minutes earlier, Damian dragging the blonde out with an embarrassed hand over his face as she winked at them and called, “Be safe!”

There’s a shelf of books on the wall by the bed that Kyle assumes are Jason’s favorites by the well worn covers and pages. There’s a larger shelf in the hall that’s wall to ceiling, filled with books of all different colors and sizes, and Kyle knows for a fact that Jason has even more at the manor. He picks one off the shelf.

“Read to me,” he says, handing it to Jason, who laughs.

“You’re worse than Cass.” But he doesn’t complain. They lie together in the lowlight of the bedroom, Jason’s voice serene as he read to Kyle words that he’d read a hundred times over. Kyle doesn’t remember when he falls asleep.

\----

He wakes up in a tangle of limbs, resenting the sun as light shines on his eyes. Jason, who to Kyle’s delight is a secret cuddler, is curled around him in a way that likens him to an octopus. He reaches for his phone on the bedside table, and is surprised to see a message from Donna, the emoticon next to it indicating a picture attachment. Wondering what it could be, Kyle opens the text, freezing mid stretch to stare at his screen in abject horror.

The text itself is a winky face, followed by a series of hearts. The _image_ is what stops him in his tracks.

A picture of Jason and him tangled together like some sort of awkward plant looks back at him, taunting. 

Donna’s written, _'Courtesy of Dick Grayson.'_ beneath it and Kyle groans, flopping back on the bed as Jason blinks awake next to him.

He was going to kill Nightwing when Batman came for his head.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! listen i would die for jaykyle. i would. tumblr: @annabethchsaes


End file.
